Trent Reznor Thoughts on Ticket Re-Sellers / Scalping
Written by Dan on March 20, 2009
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I’m actually not much of a NIN fan, but I do respect Trent Reznor’s ambition to write/record his music himself and the more I read about him, the more I respect him on a personal level as well. Reznor recently posted about ticket scalping on the NIN forum. It’s definitely worth a read.

As we approach on-sale dates for the upcoming tour, I’ve noticed lots of you are curious / concerned / outraged at the plethora of tickets that somehow appear on all these reseller sites at inflated prices - even before the pre-sale dates. I’ll do my best to explain the situation as I see it, as well as clarify my organization’s stance in the matter.

…

NIN gets 10% of the available seats for our own pre-sale. We won a tough (and I mean TOUGH) battle to get the best seats. We require you to sign up at our site (for free) to get tickets. We limit the amount you can buy, we print your name on the tickets and we have our own person let you in a separate entrance where we check your ID to match the ticket. We charge you a surcharge that has been less than TicketMaster’s or Live Nation’s in all cases so far to pay for the costs of doing this - it’s not a profit center for us. We have essentially stopped scalping by doing these things - because we want true fans to be able to get great seats and not get ripped off by these parasites.

     - NIN Forum 

Viewing 4 Comments

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    NIN was def a big part of my life and a favorite of mine for years. I'm quite happy to see Trent stand up and do things like this which help to change the industry in the positive for the fan. Not only getting the best seats to hopefully the fans that actually know more than 2 songs. Also giving away the latest release for free, in FLAQ at that... And even giving you a lot of extras if you decide to buy it.

    The approach might not be perfect with the names on the tickets, but it only leads to more change...and I agree with the GA idea being a good one - Reznor generating this kinda buzz and feedback will continue to have a good impact for the listener and the artist - instead of just the labels and crap radio stations.
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    I'm not the biggest NIN fan. But I saw them in concert last year and they put on an amazing show. There was an article about the tour in WIRED magazine:
    http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2...
    Here's a great video demonstrating some of the effects mentioned in the article:
    http://vimeo.com/groups/10590/videos/3066335

    To get back on topic, I'm obviously not a fan of scalping. But I also don't really like the idea of printing names on tickets. There's been a couple times in the past when I've purchased tickets to a show months in advance, then found out later that I had a conflict (final exam, family event, etc.). It was nice to be able to sell the tickets and recoup some of the money that I spent. If my name was printed on the tickets then this would not have been possible.

    Of course, that wouldn't be a problem if the ticket companies allowed you to return your tickets for a full or partial refund. I completely understand why the ticket companies don't currently allow this. But if they start printing names on tickets, then I think it's only fair that they should allow returns, at least to some degree.

    Another way to prevent scalping would be to make all tickets general admission, and assign the seat numbers the day of the show on a first-come first-serve basis. So the hardcore fan that gets to the show 5 hours early and waits in line will get the best seats. And the fan with deep pockets, who previously would have bought tickets from a scalper, will be in the same boat as everyone else.
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    Great input. I like your general admission idea, but I don't agree with it entirely. Perhaps some sort of compromise between the current seating system and what you described. I think it's OK to spend more money to get better seats, and just because you can't get off work early enough to camp out in front of others doesn't mean you're not a hardcore fan.

    I completely agree with you about the issue regarding your name being printed on tickets.
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    "I think it's OK to spend more money to get better seats, and just because you can't get off work early enough to camp out in front of others doesn't mean you're not a hardcore fan."

    I agree. I can definitely sympathize about not getting off work early enough. I have to deal with that a lot, especially when driving to New York or Washington for a concert.

    I could rant on this topic for hours. Basically what it comes down to is this. We live in a capitalist society, and people are willing to pay a lot of money for the best seats. So it's pretty much impossible to guarantee that hardcore fans will end up in the best seats without paying high prices, unless you make the hardcore fans jump through hoops. Because of this, I'm not sure any of the systems that have been proposed (names on tickets, general admission) are really that much better than the current system.
 
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